The Winter Social and Design Hack took place at Live Art Bistro on 23rd November 2017 and was organised by Timebank members Reet-so ( Alice and Lucy).This is the second member led social. If you are interested in organising the NEXT social event, get in touch! It’s a good way to earn lots of time credits and to get involved and to know other members.

This event was about sharing, looking forward and thinking about new plans! We invited all Timebank members and other interested people to join us and bring along a book that had inspired their artistic practice to gift, share or exchange with others.
A ‘design hack’ of the timebank was also part of this Social and what we discussed at the social will begin a year where we are looking to make changes and ensure the timebank works at its BEST for you and its network of members.

So a quick update on why happened. The questions asked in the design hack helped us to explore ways we could make the experience for members better and also the experience for those taking more responsibility like time brokers and management group more enjoyable and productive.
We ( very briefly) looked at some alternative models in other time banks and other alternative currency systems. We then had a chat in small groups about what the issues with using the Timebank were and the issues with running/managing the Timebank.

Some main points raised:

TIMEBANK SYSTEM – can feel unappealing to use and very off putting. This is the timebanking.org site but maybe also other aspects of the system like the formal language used. There is a form now on our website but more about this later in this post.

FUNCTIONALITY – are the many jobs to run the Timebank too complex – could we strip it back?

VISIBILITY OF THE TIMEBANK – its often just not in the mind of members, could we be more visible on social media?
Would it be useful to have profiles for each member, if so how can this be created easily given 150 members and who is in agreement that it is a good idea?

So actions from this around: modernising the Timebank and making it more user friendly in its virtual interface, more connected and visible in social media and less admin heavy.

STEP 1 – Thanks to Jessica Sweet who will work out what we do and is needed logistically by meeting with management group early ish January. ( Jessica to email)

STEP 2 – Thanks to Adam Young who together with any members who are tech millennial alternative currency savvy will explore options available of other currency systems we may be able to tap in to that would make the Timebank more user friendly.

ACTION 1: Can you recommend any open source software or systems from which we can develop an App that locates timebank members through their art-form tags to initiate an exchange’ If you could click here to share ideas to our Facebook group that would be ideal, or for those who do not use Facebook, email us with this information/ suggestions which we will pass on to Adam Young.

OTHER IDEAS/ STEPS:

REGULAR TIMEBANK PLAY DAYS – a suggestion to connect with Leftbank open artist days each month ? Is that right? To be run by a member not in management group. Who provides hours? Timebank? Is it like socials?

DISCUSSIONS around TWITTER and making Timebank more visible. Twitter is about conversation. In first instance – I have switched to directly engaging on twitter rather than linking only with Facebook posts. If members could tweet and Facebook more about the Timebank using the hashtag #timebankleeds when talking about Timebank ( this is for members who use social media).

ACTION 2: We hope this form has simplified and improved the user experience. If members could click on this link and have a try at making a request this way ( if you put the words TEST in the request we will know it is not a real request) Then feedback to us if this has improved usability/ made things better and in what ways this still needs improving.Many thanks for reading and please get in touch if you have ideas or thoughts on the things raised.

This post was written by Zoe Parker @Zoe_Parker – a Timebank member, time broker and member of management group. Zoe is a choreographer, producer and performer working in multidisciplinary arts projects that are socially engaged. She is one part of Tea & Tolerance and Yorkshire Life Aquatic.

Members have earned time credits in a wide range of ways organising and attending the time bank socials and inductions.

This has included practical ‘doing’ tasks like earning credits for creating signs and decorations for events such as Sarah Spanton painting signs ( above), Magda Symanska and others photographing at events and Ivor Tymchak compering at events.

Management Team members and other members have earned credits for helping to run events in the lead up to or actually at the event.

Members also earn credits for attending inductions, sometimes for bringing home-made food or for taking part in activities such as DJ-ing or preparing presentations to talk about their projects ( such as the project we ran called The Gift).

We have been discussing the situation of raising membership for the past 6 months. At present the management committee tend to split the cash cost of various expenses we have. These include £120 or so pounds to the timebank Uk which we have to pay to have the database and then small costs relating to the website and buying of food for inductions.

Membership Donation. This was raised to members at the last Big Social and through the newsletter and social media.

This could work as follows:

Ivor Tymchak also suggested that we could explore fundraising events. He says:

“As a creative timebank, we are a bunch of creative people who have many skills; how hard would it be to put on some kind of show/exhibition (and time credits given)?”

This could work as follows: An entrance fee is charged to non-members or works are sold and %age of proceeds go to paying the overheads. This would also serve to promote awareness of the timebank and its alternative model as well as raising funds.

Ivor added:

“A compromise could be to charge the membership fee so funds are guaranteed and then run events which, if they raise sufficient funds, could refund the membership fee. Any large surplus could be used to waive future membership fees.”

So July 9th was our latest Big Social held at Wharf Chambers. This was arranged predominantly by Sarah Spanton and Lynette Willoughby. In the Social, members got the chance to socialise and to take part in ‘The gift’. The Gift is a project where members can pitch a project idea that they are currently working on, and other members get to vote on which project or projects they would like to support. This time Lynette Willoughby, Sue Ball and Sarah Spanton kindly donated hours to the time bank to make this possible. Members can donate hours to other members at any time through our gifting transaction service.